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A pitched battle is shaping up between a technology start-up and Major League Baseball’s digital media unit over whether a device that lets baseball fans shift the viewing of live baseball games from their TVs to their laptops violates the league’s broadcast contracts.

At stake is millions of dollars in potential revenue that the league’s advanced media division, or MLBAM, could potentially miss out on if users of Sling Media’s Slingbox device are permitted to use the gizmo to carry their home television signals with them wherever they go.

MLBAM claims the Slingbox is a “transmission-shifting” gadget that effectively puts it in league with broadcast and cable networks, and thus violates MLB’s contracts with the networks that carry ball games.

Sling counters that its technology doesn’t violate those contracts because it blocks viewing of out-of-market games, honors blackout restrictions and simply allows users to see the games they already have access to as part of their home television packages.

The Slingbox works by allowing users to transfer live feeds from their television sets to other devices like laptop computers or cellphones via the Internet.

While both sides are still hopeful that an amicable resolution can be reached, industry observers see the dispute as having the potential to become a sports-world version of the public war being waged between media giant Viacom and Google’s YouTube.

“As [baseball] looks to capture additional revenue online, it butts up against hardware providers [like Sling] that say you can take your television with you anywhere,” said Marc Ganis, president of Sports Corp. Ltd. “If the numbers get big enough, this disagreement could certainly find its way into court.”

Looming large over the dispute is mlb.tv, a subscription service that charges $15 per month and $80 per year and is the only online outlet that allows users to watch out-of-market games.

Sources said baseball’s advanced media unit, which oversees mlb.tv and is a separate entity from MLB itself, is concerned that technologies like the Slingbox might cannibalize its audience and deprive it of revenue.

“Baseball is making an argument now because it sees online viewing as a potentially significant revenue stream shareable among all its teams,” Ganis said.

Sling says that since its device is simply an extension of one’s home television service, and since that service has already been paid for, users shouldn’t be forced to go to mlb.tv and pay a second time to watch a game.

Moreover, Sling’s Entertainment Group President, Jason Hirschhorn, argues that its product complements mlb.tv by allowing it to solely view home-market games, which are the only games subscribers to mlb.tv can’t watch.

“This company can help enhance baseball and help build its base of fans,” said Robert Tuchman, president of TSE Sports & Entertainment.

At a time when baseball is faced with allegations of steroid use and other challenges, trying to rein in new technologies like Sling’s seems eerily reminiscent of the music industry’s legal maneuvers after Napster and other new distribution services came on the scene.

It’s a point not lost on Hirschhorn, who sealed his deal to join Sling on the field at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco.

“Calling us illegal is not a marketing plan,” said Hirschhorn, former chief digital officer at MTV.

“It’s what the music industry tried to do and we’ve already seen what happened there. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to America’s pastime.”